Dallas Big Rig Accident Attorney

Attorney Michael Grossman Explains What You Need to Know After a Truck Accident

The legal process following a truck accident can frequently be lengthy and complex. In a perfect world, after we’ve been injured insurance companies would arrive at the scene of the accident to write big checks.

In reality, however, collecting money from an insurance company is rarely automatic and usually requires complex legal proceedings, especially if your accident involved a truck. Plaintiffs who don’t hire attorneys almost never collect what their cases are really worth.

If you’ve been involved in a truck accident, you’ve already lost once. Don’t lose again. Even though recovery isn’t automatic, it doesn’t need to be difficult. With a Dallas big rig accident attorney from Grossman Law Offices on your side, you can concentrate on getting well while we concentrate on winning your case. Even though we’ll handle everything, we know that our clients like to be informed about both their legal rights and the progress of their case at every step of the way. In this article, we’ll explain some of the basic steps of truck accident cases so that you know what you’re up against. The steps we’ll discuss include:

• Deciding to pursue your claim
• Conducting an investigation
• Identifying the defendant
• Conducting discovery
• Protecting your case from sabotage
• Winning your case

In reality, truck accident cases are much more complicated and involve many more steps than we’ll discuss here. This article serves to provide an understanding of just the very basic framework of your case. It isn’t intended as a guide for handling your case on your own. If you’d like to learn more about the legal process or if you’d like a personalized assessment of your legal situation, call us at 1-855-326-0000 (toll free) for answers.

Step One: Deciding to Pursue your Claim

Truck accident litigation has two goals. First, pursuing a claim against the parties responsible for your injuries allows you to potentially collect money from those parties in compensation for your losses. It may seem crass to suggest that any sum of money could compensate you and your family for the emotional and physical losses you’ve suffered as a result of the accident. You’ve probably realized, however, that your losses are financial in addition to emotional and physical. Accident victims frequently wrestle with high medical bills and repair costs after a wreck. The situation is frequently made worse by the fact that many accident victims need to take time off from work in order to recover from their injuries. Other accident victims are never able to return to work at all. These financial hardships can make it particularly difficult for an accident victim to get his or her life back on track after a wreck. That’s where collecting damages from a defendant can help. Compensation for pain and suffering, medical bills, repair bills, lost wages, loss of earning capacity, and other losses suffered as a result of the accident can make it much easier for accident victims and their families to get back on their feet again.

The second goal of truck accident litigation is to punish the defendant for causing your injuries. When you punish the individual or company responsible for causing your accident, you’ll diminish the likelihood that that party will act carelessly in a way that puts others in danger in the future. When you pursue your claim against a defendant, your injuries are never suffered in vain because you’ll be helping to make the roadways safer for others.

In most instances, achieving either of these goals is impossible unless you are prepared to pursue litigation. The law states that accident victims are not entitled to collect anything from the people responsible for a wreck. This means that defendants win cases by default and are considered “innocent” until proven liable. If you want to recover, you’ve got to pursue your case and prove that you’re entitled to receive damages from the defendant.

Once you’ve decided you’re ready to pursue your claim for damages, or even if you aren’t yet certain, call a Dallas big rig accident attorney to discuss your options.

Step Two: Conducting an Investigation

One of the initial steps in any litigation, and especially in truck accident litigation, is conducting a thorough investigation. Conducting an investigation into the circumstances surrounding your accident allows you to do two things. First, you’ll gather the information you need to determine who was responsible for causing your wreck. Second, you’ll be able to collect the evidence you’ll need to prove who was responsible for causing your accident in court. Jurors don’t like to be told how to decide. Instead, they like to hold scraps of wreckage, hear the testimony of people who saw the crash, and see photographs of the accident scene. Evidence isn’t just a nice touch; it’s necessary to prove your case. The initial investigation of your wreck will often unearth evidence critical to winning your claim.

The Dallas big rig accident lawyers at Grossman Law Offices have twenty years of experience conducting investigations. In fact, it’s our standard procedure in virtually every trucking accident case that we handle to visit the scene of the wreck to begin searching for evidence. When we arrive at the scene, we talk to witnesses, take pictures, record measurements, gather police reports, examine wreckage, conduct forensic testing, and otherwise locate and collect the evidence you’ll need to know who the defendant in your case is and prove his liability. All of this is done at no out of pocket cost to our clients.

Defense attorneys conduct investigations too, and in fact the defense attorneys in your case have probably already been to the accident scene. In most instances, defense attorneys are dispatched to the scene of the accident mere moments after a wreck occurs, along with teams of investigators and accident recreation specialists. They get such an early start on their investigations because they know that the longer they wait to investigate an accident, the less likely it is that they’ll be able to find the evidence they’re looking for. After an accident, wrecked vehicles are towed to salvage yards, records are destroyed, witnesses leave the scene, and trucks are repaired. Take a lesson from the defense lawyers in your case, and start your investigation as soon after an accident as you can. The Dallas big rig accident lawyers at Grossman Law Offices are usually able to construct strong cases even if we aren’t contacted until months after a wreck, but the strongest cases are almost always built when we’re contacted quickly. Don’t delay in calling a lawyer after your accident.

Step Three: Identifying the Defendant

The evidence you gather during your investigation will usually reveal the identity of the party responsible for your accident. Especially in truck accident cases, figuring out who to name as a defendant can be a complex matter. This is because many parties may have made mistakes which ultimately contributed to causing your wreck. In addition to considering all the drivers and pedestrians on a road at the time of your accident, you’ve also got to consider whether any of the numerous individuals and companies which prepared the truck for its delivery could have done something behind the scenes which made the truck unsafe. In many instances, a combination of individuals will be responsible for causing an accident. When multiple parties contribute to causing a crash, you can sue all of them for their actions.

There are several parties who are frequently to blame for causing truck accident. These parties include truckers, trucking companies, manufacturers, companies that plan routes, and companies that load trucks. Below, we’ll discuss the roles that each of these individuals and entities may play in causing a wreck.

Truckers are often among the parties most directly responsible for causing an accident. In some instances, truckers cause wrecks by simply being careless drivers. If a trucker rolls through a stop sign, speeds recklessly, or drives under the influence of alcohol, it may be possible to hold him accountable for his actions. In other cases, truckers cause wrecks because they don’t get enough sleep. By law, truckers are required to take periodic rest breaks. Many truckers, however, are faced with unrealistic delivery schedules or compensated based on how fast they can make a delivery. When they’re motivated to break the rules, some truckers will forego their rest breaks and battle fatigue, traffic, and weather to make a delivery by a certain deadline. When truckers prioritize deadlines over safety, results can be disastrous. One study has shown that truckers who spend more than eight hours at a time behind the wheel are twice as likely to be involved in a wreck. Another found that around twenty percent of long-haul truckers admitted to falling asleep in the driver’s seat of a big rig in the preceding month. Whether a trucker caused your wreck by simple carelessness or by driving without taking mandatory breaks, you may be able to name the trucker as a defendant in your lawsuit.

Trucking companies are usually liable for causing wrecks as well. There are two ways to hold a trucking company responsible for an accident. You may hold a trucking company either directly or vicariously liable depending on the circumstances of your case. A company is directly liable for your wreck if it did something negligent itself which led to your accident. For example, a trucking company may be held directly liable for an accident if it hired a trucker without checking to ensure that the trucker had a commercial driver’s license. If the trucker causes a wreck because he didn’t know how to operate a truck, the trucking company might be found directly liable for the wreck because of their negligent hiring practices.

In other circumstances, a trucking company may be held vicariously liable for your injuries. The doctrine of respondeat superior makes this possible. This old Latin phrase simply means that an employer is liable for his employees’ on-the-job actions; even if the employer didn’t do anything wrong itself. In a truck accident case, this usually makes it possible to sue a trucking company whenever you can sue a trucker. Respondeat superior is a powerful tool for plaintiffs since it allows you to reach the deeper pockets of a company which may be better suited financially to compensate you for your injuries than its employees are.

If a defective truck part was the cause of a wreck, a manufacturer may be to blame for your accident. Trucks are made up of many parts, and the proper operation of many of those parts is necessary for the safe operation of the truck as a whole. If a tire has a design flaw or the straps securing cargo have a manufacturing defect, these imperfections may easily lead to hazardous situations which put other motorists at risk. If a flawed or defective truck part causes a wreck, you may be able to file a products liability claim against the responsible manufacturer.

Companies that plan routes can be held liable for your injuries if your injuries resulted because a truck collided with certain environmental obstacles. Unlike your car, trucks are highly restricted in what routes they are able to travel. Weight restrictions, height restrictions, and cargo restrictions prevent large trucks from navigating certain roads, bridges, and tunnels. As a result, a truck’s route is usually planned out far in advance by a company. Truckers rarely make up their own routes as they go along. If a truck collides with an environmental obstacle, such as a bridge, as a result of poor route planning, the company that planned the truck’s route may be named as a defendant in your lawsuit if injuries resulted.

Sometimes trucks are improperly loaded and the companies that load trucks may be to blame for a wreck. By law, most trucks aren’t supposed to be loaded above 80,000 pounds. Nevertheless, some companies will overload trailers in an attempt to deliver more goods at a lower cost. The problem with this is that overloaded trucks are more apt to tip over. When companies try to cut corners to save a buck, they take risks with your safety. In other instances, cargo will be improperly secured to a trailer. Loose cargo can fly off the back of a truck if the truck is involved in so much as a minor collision, or can even fall off a truck entirely unprovoked. Whether cargo was improperly loaded or overloaded, you may have a cause of action against the company that loaded the truck involved in your accident.

Truckers, trucking companies, manufacturers, companies that plan routes, and companies that load trucks are just a few of many individuals and entities which may contribute to causing a wreck. Since so many errors could take place behind the scenes before the truck even leaves on its route, it’s usually only possible to identify all responsible parties by conducting an investigation. Only once you’ve correctly identified everyone who caused your accident will you potentially be able to recover all that your case is worth and hold the responsible parties accountable for their actions.

Step Four: Conducting Discovery

Before a trial, both parties in a truck accident case conduct discovery. In discovery, parties are able to gather more evidence that they need to support their cases. During discovery, your attorney will be able to request documents from the trucking company and other defendants, including the records of the trucker’s rest breaks, documents concerning the crash, and other important evidence. Often, companies are reluctant to hand over this information, which can be devastating to their cases. We’ve been conducting discovery for twenty years, and we know which documents to ask for and how to make sure that we get them. It’s important to understand that trucking companies are only required by law to maintain their records regarding a crash for a short period of time. If you wait too long to contact an attorney and begin the discovery process, you may find that the trucking company’s records have already been legally destroyed.

Depositions are another important part of discovery. In a deposition, your attorney gets to ask questions to the defendant’s witnesses in advance of trial. The witnesses’ answers are taken down by a court reporter, and often recorded by video as well so that the witnesses can’t change their stories prior to testifying in trial.

It’s often necessary for our Dallas big rig accident lawyers to depose truck drivers. More so than most defendants, truckers have special motivations for lying about the cause of an accident. Very few trucking companies would consider allowing a driver with a history of causing wrecks to get behind the wheel of one of their trucks. As a result, truckers who are found liable for causing accidents usually lose their jobs. When faced with a choice between lying about the cause of the accident and losing their livelihoods, many truckers will choose their jobs over their integrity. This usually means that they’ll blame you for the wreck to get off the hook themselves. If you can’t prove that the trucker in your case is lying, you’ll probably lose your case.

In a deposition, our lawyers can find out what story the trucker intends to tell the jurors, and we can catch him in a lie if he’s not telling the truth. Over the past twenty years, we’ve developed artful questioning techniques which we’ve used in thousands of depositions. We’re usually able to get witnesses to admit the truth at depositions, or we can use other evidence gathered during investigations and discovery to prove that a trucker is lying.

Step Five: Protecting your Case from Sabotage

In addition to the trucker, insurance companies and trucking companies will be trying to sabotage your case. Their tactics are often successful against plaintiffs who don’t have Dallas big rig accident lawyers on their sides. Below, we’ll explain some of the ways that insurance companies and self-insured trucking companies may try to prevent you from winning before your case even hits the courtroom.

• Insurance Companies
  Insurance companies aren’t in the business of helping people. They’re in the business of making money. If you haven’t got a lawyer, they have the resources and the potential to see to it that you aren’t compensated fairly for your losses.
  
  By law, trucking companies must carry insurance on their trucks. As a result, most cases involve at least one insurance company. Insurance policies held on trucks are usually worth about fifty times more than the policies that most of us purchase for our ordinary cars. Because they stand to lose around fifty times more money on a truck accident claim as on a car accident claim, insurance companies will frequently devote up to fifty times more resources to protect these high-dollar policies.
  
  Adjusters are one resource that insurance companies use to protect themselves from liability. If you’ve ever been in a fender bender before, you may have some familiarity with the role of adjusters. Their job is to deny your claim or at least to make sure that you are paid as little as possible for your injuries. The adjusters that handle truck accident claims aren’t the same individuals who handle car accident claims, however. Insurance companies usually reserve their very top adjusters for work on truck accident claims. These adjusters have earned their current positions by developing reputations for being ruthless with accident victims and denying compensation.
  
  Be wary of the tricks that adjusters will use to justify denying your claim. After a truck accident, adjusters frequently call accident victims repeatedly to ask them innocent-sounding questions about the wreck. They may appear friendly and well-intentioned, but these conversations are usually designed to do one thing—to get you to admit something that could be used against you to deny your claim. If you say anything that could be taken out of context to mean that you caused the accident or that you aren’t really hurt, your words will be recorded and used against you. The best way to deal with adjusters is usually not to deal with them at all. The Dallas big rig accident lawyers at Grossman Law Offices don’t allow adjusters to call our clients. We take all of their calls. That way, adjusters never have the opportunity to ask our clients questions which could potentially lead to damaging answers.
  
  Insurance companies also keep specialized insurance defense attorneys on staff or on retainer. These lawyers usually handle strictly insurance defense cases, and know the law well as a result. They are well versed in dozens of legal loopholes which they regularly use to have the legitimate claims of unrepresented accident victims dismissed. If you don’t have a legal expert on your side, your case could face a similar fate.
  
  
• Self-Insured Trucking Companies
  Though most cases involve an insurance company, some do not. This is because some trucking companies elect to be self-insured rather than to purchase a traditional insurance policy from an insurance company. A trucking company that’s self-insured sets aside a portion of its assets with the purpose of being able to pay a successful plaintiff from those resources. Thanks to a self-insured trucking company’s officers, getting your hands on that money won’t be easy if you don’t have an attorney.
  
  When an insurance company is involved in a case, negotiations go through adjusters. When a self-insured trucking company is involved in a case, negotiations usually involve officers of the company instead. Though adjusters are typically aggressive in their tactics and stubborn on their offers, the officers of a self-insured trucking company are often far more challenging to deal with. For one thing, an officer’s salary usually depends directly on his company’s profits. If an officer elects to pay your claim, his pay will probably take a direct hit. Since many officers are more concerned with their own salaries than they are with making sure that you’re compensated fairly, it’s common for their personal motivations to get in the way of your recovery.
  
  Motivated by personal finances, many officers will go to great lengths to see to it that accident victims aren’t paid. While insurance adjusters are licensed professionals bound to behave according to the ethical guidelines of their profession in order to keep their licenses, no such restrictions govern the conduct of officers. As a result, officers will commonly tamper with evidence, harass witnesses, and even threaten accident victims. If the officer of a self-insured trucking company is bothering you or your family, don’t let it go so far that it affects your case or your sanity. Call Grossman Law Offices. Our Dallas and Fort Worth big rig accident lawyers can use the law to put an end to inappropriate conduct.

Step Six: Winning your Case

You may either win your case through collecting a settlement or through securing a judgment in court. Our attorneys are prepared for either option. Below, we’ll discuss what settlements and trials entail.

• Settlements
  Though television and movies have popularized the notion of lawyers going to court and dramatically shouting at witnesses, judges, and each other, in reality most cases never go to trial. Instead, they’re settled out of court without the need for intervention by a judge or a jury. In a settlement, the defendant offers to pay the plaintiff a certain amount of money in compensation for the plaintiff’s injuries, even though no judge has ordered the defendant to do so. In exchange, the plaintiff agrees not to sue the defendant for more money for the same injuries in the future. Accepting a good settlement offer can be highly beneficial to a plaintiff, who gets his money faster and without the risk and uncertainty always present when the fate of a claim rests in the hands of a fickle group of randomly selected jurors. On the other hand, accepting a bad settlement offer can completely destroy a plaintiff’s legal rights to seek full compensation for his injuries.
  
  Defendants usually won’t give you their best settlement offer unless you’ve got a Dallas big rig accident attorney on your side. The best way to get a good settlement offer is to make the defendant nervous that if you take your claim to court, you’ll win your case. When you’ve got a strong attorney and strong evidence on your side, defendants are apt to pay attention. The lawyers at Grossman Law Offices have won verdicts and settlements against nearly every major insurance company in the country. Defendants know our name. We’re usually able to use our reputation to pressure defendants into settling our clients’ cases out of court rather than facing our lawyers at trial.
  
  Make certain not to accept an unfair settlement offer. Insurance companies know that accident victims are usually strapped with medical bills, repair bills, and lost wages. They may dangle fast cash in front of you, hoping that you’ll accept this small amount of money in full satisfaction of their liabilities. They’ll often tell an unrepresented accident victim that their offer is all that he’s owed or the best that he’s going to get. This is rarely the case, but if you accept one of these offers, you won’t be able to sue the defendant for what your claim is really worth. Be sure that you have an attorney review any settlement offer before you accept it. We can give you a good idea of what your claim is worth, and whether or not an offer is fair.
  
  
• Trials
  When cases don’t settle out of court, it’s usually necessary to take them to trial. As we’ve discussed, the burden of proof at trial lies on your shoulders, and the defendant is considered to be not liable for your injuries until you present evidence to prove otherwise. Pinning liability on the defendant requires bringing evidence to court to prove each of the four elements of a truck accident claim. Those elements are duty, breach, causation, and damages.
  
  Proving duty involves showing that the defendant you’ve named in your case owed you some duty of care to act in a way that wouldn’t cause you injuries. Showing duty is generally rather straightforward since most people owe each other the duty of care to behave as a reasonable person would act to avoid hurting others. The law determines what duty of care is owed depending on the situation and relationships between the individuals involved.
  
  Next, you’ll need to demonstrate a breach of the applicable duty of care. Assuming that the “reasonable person” duty of care applied to the defendant in your case, this will involve demonstrating that the defendant did something that a reasonable person wouldn’t have done, or that he failed to take some precaution that a reasonable person would have taken to keep you safe. Would a reasonable person run a red light? Would a reasonable person swerve back and forth between lanes? The answer to these questions is probably no. In order to show the defendant breached his duty of care, you’ll need to bring evidence to court to demonstrate precisely what the defendant did or did not do. The jurors will consider this evidence along with all of the surrounding circumstances in order to determine whether the applicable duty of care was breached.
  
  It isn’t enough to demonstrate that the defendant breached the duty of care that he owed you. You must also show causation, or that his negligent actions caused your injuries. As we’ve mentioned, there are many parties both on the road and behind the scenes who may have played a role in causing your wreck. In all likelihood, the defendant in your case will try to pin the blame for the wreck on one of these third parties, or on you. To prove that the defendant is liable for your injuries, you’ll need to be able to show the jurors compelling evidence that it was the defendant you’ve named in your lawsuit that caused the accident.
  
  Finally, you’ll need to prove your damages. The term “damages” refers to the money that you’ll receive from the defendant in compensation for your injuries. It isn’t enough to simply choose a number and demand to be paid that amount. To recover damages you’ll need to calculate exactly how much you believe you’re owed and bring evidence of your losses to court in order to support your calculations. In most cases, the issue of damages is a hotly contested matter at trial. The defendant will calculate how much he thinks he should owe you, just in case the jury finds him to have caused the accident. If his number is greater than zero, it’s certain to be much lower than yours. The defendant will try to demonstrate that you aren’t hurt as badly as you say you are and that you’re merely asking for handouts. It takes proof to demonstrate that your calculation is fair while the defendant’s is merely a last-resort attempt to evade responsibility.
  
  For a non-attorney or for an inexperienced attorney, calculating damages can seem like a daunting task. Few people, for example, know precisely how to put a price tag on an intangible loss such as pain and suffering. Additionally, calculating long-term losses can be a complex process. How can you know how much your medical bills will ultimately amount to if the full extent of the treatment you’ll need remains unknown? How can you calculate loss of earning capacity if you don’t know what kind of raises or promotions you would have received if you’d been able to return to your job? These are questions that the experienced Fort Worth and Dallas big rig accident lawyers at Grossman Law Offices are prepared to answer.

How to Select a Lawyer

With so many personal injury attorneys in the Dallas – Fort Worth area choosing the right one can sometimes seem like a daunting task. When selecting an attorney to handle your truck accident case, keep in mind that truck accident cases often involve many complexities that car accident cases do not. Enormous insurance policies, top-notch adjusters, lying truckers, and self-insured trucking companies don’t usually complicate ordinary car accident litigation. Because of these specialized issues, you need a specialized attorney on your case. Look for an attorney who has experience handling truck accident cases like yours. We recommend speaking with at least two or three lawyers before deciding which of them you’d like to take your case. Find out about each attorney’s track record of settling and winning truck accident cases. See if the attorney can tell you what the strengths and weaknesses of your case are and ask to speak with a former client whose case was similar to yours. Ultimately, you should hire a lawyer who has solid experience winning truck accident cases and who you feel you can trust.

How Grossman Law Offices can Help

In reality, truck accident cases are complex legal matters involving the steps described here in addition to many others. If you’ve been injured in the Dallas – Fort Worth area, Grossman Law Offices can help you navigate the legal process. Our attorneys handle our clients’ cases from beginning to end. A few of the services we offer in nearly every big rig accident case that we handle include:

• Making sure that our clients receive medical attention, even if they didn’t think that they could afford it.
• Conducting investigations to determine the identities of all parties responsible for an accident.
• Gathering evidence such as photographs, measurements, video surveillance tapes, police reports, witness statements, and other items which can be used to support our clients’ cases.
• Making sure that defendants comply with all discovery requests.
• Conducting depositions to catch defense witnesses in their lies before trial.
• Taking all calls from defendants and their insurance adjusters.
• Protecting our clients’ cases from being dismissed by defense attorneys.
• Making sure that self-insured trucking companies behave ethically.
• Using our reputation to pressure defendants into settling cases with our clients.
• Developing trial strategies to meet our clients’ burdens of proof at trial.

To learn more about what our lawyers can do to help you with your case, call us at 1-855-326-0000 (toll free). We’ll answer your questions about our firm, truck accident law, and the specifics of your situation. We’re available seven days a week, 24 hours a day to take your calls and answer your questions.